Maya Tours — Local services in Rome

Booked a “skip the line Vatican tour” with a host named David via the AirBnB app. The day before our tour he told us all the info for the meeting place, turns out it was all through Maya Tours. Lots of back and forth. David had a personal family emergency which I totally understand as it happens to us all. Day of we got to the Maya Tours office to check in and they had our info and directed us to a different tour guide than who David had told us we were going to be with. While enroute to the Vatican I messaged David saying we had a different tour guide and were we on the right tour. He promptly messaged back and said that oh yeah he had set up multiple tours and we would be fine. Okay that would’ve been nice to know prior. The tour itself is horrible. You don’t actually skip any line. Instead of going to general admission you go to a line for tour guides and have to wait in that line to get inside. Once inside our tour guide way very rushed and it almost seemed like she couldn’t wait to get finished with the tour. She rushed through pretty much every room. We had to tell her multiple times there were people missing from our group so she would stop. There was absolutely no time for people to look around these beautiful rooms and take pictures or read about the artwork. A couple in our group actually asked to leave. She told them that they would have to leave completely and renter the Vatican (untrue) and to top it all off at the end of the tour she said if we wanted to we could walk back through the Vatican again by ourselves. Sorry but didn’t I just pay you guys for a tour so I wouldn’t have to do it myself? I learned more about the Vatican reading about it online than from this tour. The best part is when I left my review on Airbnb the host told me that I was totally mistaken. If I had left a positive review about Maya reviews I highly doubt he...

What a disaster. Was approached on route to Vatican museums (we had already prebooked online).

Was told there would be 25 people on tour max, there was 63. When we saw there was a lot of people, we were then told it was all the different language groups, but it wasn't.

The guide was informative, for the first half an hour... Till we actually got inside the main museum part. It was really hard to keep up with him as there was so many people in the group and in the museum at the same time.

So when we could hear him we couldn't see what he was talking about, then he got so far ahead we lost signal.

So I can imagine on a less busy day it would be a good quick tour of some of the museum. However, after the Sistine Chapel you are led straight into the Basilica (the exit to the right) which means you don't have to go out the museum exits, walk back around and start queuing for the Basilica entrance.

So I recommend not leaving when the guide leaves and go through the left door and back around the museum, because you will miss LOADS. You will be still able to use the shortcut into Basilica next time around as you will have a tour sticker. But to be honest, you could probably just use the door anyway if u go through with a group as nobody checks.

Next time I go, I will prebook standard tickets (to skip the line) get the audio tour from the museum, and ignore anyone who approaches me on the way around the Vatican wall.

We did complain at the office the next day, Teresa was helpful, and the manager was understanding and gave us a full refund. I'm still leaving a 1 star though because of the stress caused on the day, thinking we'd lost €60 and the hour or so out of the next day to get a refund. And like I said, you are better off getting the audio tour and take...

Pressure sales techniques. Go for the audio tour, save your money and enjoy what is missed during the rushed tour.

We toured the Vatican with Maya Tours, a guy approached us on the way to the Vatican entrance. It wad describe as a small group, 25 max, with audio headsets.

Told there was a 3 hour wait for Basilica without group pass, this was a lie, there was a que of about 20 people that were skipped when we had finished the guided tour and out own time in the museum.

Also told that with the audio tours (what we were going to do) we would miss out on a lot of information and wouldn't know where things were it was taking about, another lie. There were many audio points for a considerable amount of artifacts we didn't see or even walk past on the tour.

The tour was a group tour of about 70 people, far too large and uncomfortable at times. The tour started well, but went down hill quickly, most the time the guide was very far in front and couldn't get past the other people in the tour to see what he was talking about. The headsets kept cutting out because of how far he was ahead so we missed out on some of the information.

We went around the museum part again after the tour and only then did we realise how much we had missed out on.

It's not worth paying for the tour compared to the standard admission ticket price and the amount of the museum you simply do...